retrofitting heineken mini kegs

[divi2323]

There's a lot of posts about reusing keineken mini kegs but has anyone actually succeeded in tapping them to fit normal pin/ball lock connectors?

Has anyone here ever cut one open? is the exterior aluminum or steel, and if so, how thick is it? Is it too thin to drill a hole and tap it with the proper threads to accept corny keg fittings?

I'm sure that these are pretty cheap containers, but if you wanted to take an 18 pack on the go with you, it would seem to me that pressure filling from a bigger keg might work.

Ideas?

 

[Gear101]

There is a vid on youtube, a guy goes through all three different types of kegs and opens them up and shows the CO2 can in a couple.

 

[ColumbusAmongus]

Yeah I tried both Heiny and the normal ones with the air valve in the top like a Bells keg. I suggest going with the Bells style because the Heiny kegs have a CO2 cartridge inside that you can't get out and falls apart really easily. Inside the cartridge there are some weird CO2 generating pellets and I feel like you just can't sanitize that thing.

Go to northern brewer forum and search for mini keg conversions and you will find some designs.

For the Heiny, I drilled a hole and used a pretsa bike valve in a bung. That works but I would get strong metallic flavors after a few weeks because I couldn't get the metal shavings out from making the hole.

The Bells keg style requires no drilling but you need to assemble a T-vavle to get CO2 in and beer out of the top hole. I found this design easier to work with and it worked like a charm.

 

[davis119]

search here some one just posted this
i think it was yooper or one of the mods that gave a good diy link from the NB forum